Chapter Text
The office is inviting, but not cozy. The atmosphere is tense but somewhat calm all at once, and it makes her nerves feel fried. Her heart aches, and it almost feels like Christopher all over again, but this time her child is alive. He's just going to be gone.
She felt like it was over before it started.
She had Betty, and that had been barely official. She had been cleared by child services to take the girl in, to be her foster parent, but it wasn’t a title she carried. She had taken the teen under her wing and cared for her. That was all; taking care of a mostly self-sufficient addicted teen was different than raising a baby. But as the days turned to weeks, she had fallen in love with little Leo. Leo was Owen’s foster son. He was a licensed foster parent, a veteran, former chief of surgery. He had Leo. Her—she carried the head of Neuro title, but she had a history of drug and alcohol abuse. Now, it wasn’t anywhere officially, but it was there like a loaded gun, just waiting for someone to pull the trigger to use it against her.
What she had with Owen was over. She didn’t see any way to fix things, and she wasn't even sure if she wanted to. And Leo was his, anyways.
But then Leo’s grandparents brought him back and told them that Betty—Britney, she reminds herself—wanted them to be Leo’s parents, her heart had swelled in the most delightful way.
But Leo was Owen’s son.
Derek had put his hands on her shoulders before she had made her way to this very offic, when she had dropped Leo off for he and Meredith to watch. He had looked her in her eyes, his very blue eyes meeting her matching pair. He had told her that he believed in her—she was the best mom for Leo. She had needed that. He had seen that she was already resigning herself, that she was going in feeling like it was a losing battle. He had told her to fight for her son; she had an army to help her. She couldn’t give up on her chance to be a mom again. To be the perfect mom to that little boy.
So here she was, sitting beside her ex-husband in front of Blanca Rodriguez, their lawyer, as they hashed out custody details for Leo.
“Britney’s signature, her parents’ signatures, everything’s notarized. Owen, Amelia, I have good news and bad news.”
“Is something wrong?” Owen asks her. She shifts uncomfortably in her own chair.
“No. That's the good news and the bad news. This is so straightforward I'm not going to be able to bill you for so many hours,” she jokes.
“Oh,” Amelia laughs, her chest still incredibly tight.
“So, let’s get started with you two. What is Leo’s address?”
The two of them eyed each other. Amelia's stomach dropped. This was the part she had been dreading, the part when she could lose it all. Would his primary address be Owen’s familiar little house? Or the house she shared with her brother, sisters and her nieces and nephew? Simplicity with dad, or chaos with mom?
When the awkward silence dragged on, Blanca says, “trick question. It's really your address.”
“No--no, it’s not that,” Owen quickly recovers. She does not. “We don’t live together anymore.”
“Oh.” Blanca sits back.
“Is that a problem?” Amelia asks nervously, fingers fidgeting.
“You tell me.” Her hands fold on the desk and sits up straighter. "Because if the two of you are going to be fighting for custody, then—"
“No, no, no,” Owen interrupts and Amelia shakes her head so hard she thinks she might give herself whiplash. “Neither of us wants that.”
“We are totally committed to Leo,” Amelia finally finds strength in her voice. She reaches for Owen who grabs her hand. “And, um, we want what’s best for him.”
“Then we should be good,” Blanca informs that. Amelia's hand slips from Owen’s, a smile plastered on her face. For Leo . “But I am going to have to take back what I said about this not being complicated."
Amelia looks at Owen, continuing to force a smile. She knew this was too good to be true, and she was waiting for the floor to be swept from under her.
Blanca's gaze shifts between them, her expression softening slightly despite the gravity of the situation. "This is about creating the best environment for Leo," she states, her tone firm yet understanding.
Amelia nods jerkily, swallowing thickly.
"We'll do whatever it takes," Owen adds, his tone resolute.
Blanca sighs, tapping her fingers thoughtfully on her desk. "Then I suggest we start by discussing a detailed plan for his care. It's crucial we get this right. So, are you planning on alternating weeks or splitting weeks? 2-2-3?”
“2-2-3 is...?” Owen questions. Amelia is equally as confused.
“You each get two days, and whoever went first gets three, and the next week you flip it so the time balances out.”
“Um...” it’s overwhelming. It's so incredibly overwhelming in her buzzing mind. She's bright, so bright, but lately it’s seemed like she couldn't keep up with herself. She was a sinking ship, bobbing just below the waves. “W-we haven’t had much time to discuss it, so...”
“The judge is going to want to know.” Blanca says it simply; it’s clear they need to figure it out.
Amelia looks at Owen pleadingly, but he doesn’t return to look. “Well, I don’t want to spend half my time away from him.”
There. This was it—the drop. The very reason Derek had firmly told her to fight, to not give up on her son. She blinks, eyes stinging from the tears that were forming. “She gave custody to both of us.”
“Yeah, but she didn’t know that you’d just left me.” There was the blame, his reasoning to fight to be the only parent in Leo’s life. “Maybe she would have made a different decision.”
Owen’s words cut through her heart like a knife, and she sat back like he had physically struck her. “Okay, so you don’t even want me on the paperwork.”
“No, that’s not what time saying! I'm saying that there’s an argument to be made in favor of consistency.”
“Leo is my son, too.”
“Okay folks, we’re done here,” Blanca says suddenly, closing her file folder. She stands up, the former couple following suit.
“No, no, wait! We will—we're gonna figure it out,” she says quickly.
“’We’ll figure it out’ isn’t the kind of answer I can give a judge. This went longer than expected and I have another client. But use the room. If you want this child in your life, you need to get on the same page, fast.” She left, leaving the former couple.
They sat in synchrony. Amelia wants to shrink, to curl up in a ball and just disappear under this scrutiny. She needed Derek, or Maggie, or Lexie, or Meredith.
Owen doesn’t miss a beat and begins scribbling down on a notepad that was on the desk. “So, we split,” he tells her. He swallows. He didn’t want to miss half of his son’s life, but he didn’t want to risk losing him in a battle either. “So, on the days we trade, one of us drops him off at daycare, and the other picks him up?”
“Yeah,” she nods almost numbly. “That makes sense.”
“Okay. 2-2-3. It's Monday, so...you dropped him off at your brother’s? You have him today and tomorrow, I’ll take him Wednesday and Thursday, and you get him Friday through Sunday. Then we switch. Okay, done.”
She nods with a forced smile. “You know this will probably all go out the window once Teddy has her baby,” she says, hurt evident in her voice. The stacks against them were too high. “You’re not going to know the difference from your 2s and your 3s.”
Owen chuckled. “Well, Teddy with Koracick now, and they’re on their baby honeymoon in Palm Springs. I still don’t know what that is.”
Amelia sighs. “This is not the time for Teddy feelings.”
“W-it—it's not a feeling. It's more—"
“Still not the time.” She was internally kicking herself for even uttering Teddy’s name. She stands up, pulling her cell phone out. “I’m gonna text our lawyer and let her know that we made a plan." She moves away from him, perching on the arm of one of the comfortable looking white chairs.
Owen looks at her like she put the sun in sky, pure adoration in his eyes. “Amelia. I don’t just want you in Leo’s life. I want you in mine.”
Amelia inhales deeply, phone shoved in her pocket. “Let’s not do this.” Her voice wavered, emotions wrecking her body like a tidal wave.
“I chose you. I choose you. That's never changed.”
Amelia is hit by the enslaught of emotions and memories. Owen, so new and fragile in her life, taking the bag of oxy from her hands as she broke down, not knowing whether her brother would ever wake from his coma. Owen, in that fragile, tentative relationship. Owen, taking it slow because of her fragile state. Owen holding her hand by Derek’s bedside for months. Owen, proposing. Owen, marrying her. Owen, staying by her side after she discovers her massive tumor, despite how she treated him. Owen, and the glorious no-strings-attaches sex. Owen, fostering Leo, and how she ended up back in his house. Owen, raising both Britney and Leo alongside her. Was the fight they had worth the end of their story?
“Things went bad when Betty ran away and we thought we lost Leo, but we...”
“Owen, stop. It changed with Teddy. I know this is messy and painful and it’s not what you wanted, and that is no one’s fault.”
“Teddy was—is—she's my best friend. And maybe there was something there, maybe there wasn’t. But it’s not...it’s not in the cards for us. My relationship with Teddy affected my marriage with Cristina, my marriage with you. No more. No more sabotaging myself and my relationships because I love you, Amelia. I love you. I love Leo and our family we created. You are the perfect mom for Leo, and you are perfect for me. You and I, we were real. We still could be.”
She blinks, unable to swallow or breathe, paralyzed by her emotions. Her eyes shimmer with unshed tears that threaten to leave a trail down her flushed cheeks. She looks up at him, the weight of their shared history pressing down on her chest like an angry rhinoceros, making it hard to inhale. Owen's words linger in the air, a lifeline of hope amidst the wreckage of their shattered past. She struggles to find her voice, to articulate the maelstrom of emotions swirling within her. She wants to believe him more than anything, to grasp onto the possibility of a future together, for Leo to grow up in a home with two loving parents, but the pain still felt too raw, too immediate.
"I don't know if I can," she whispers, her voice barely audible. "I don't know if I can go through all that again, Owen.” She takes a tentative step towards him regardless, her fingers brushing against his, a small but significant gesture.
The door opened, startling them as they separate. “Did I hear we’ve got a plan?” Blanca asks from the doorway, eyes flitting back and forth between the skittish pair. “Come, have a seat,” she beckons them.
The two sit in their original seats. “We’ll do the 2-2-3,” Owen starts. “Amelia, she has him tonight and tomorrow, and um, I’ll have him Wednesday and Thursday, then she has him Friday through the weekend. Then we’ll switch.”
“That’s perfect,” she says, writing down what he told him. “Now, I don’t want to get panicky phone calls when this takes time. This always does, okay? It's the nature of the beast. But I think you two are in great shape.”
“Thank you,” Owen says quickly but genuinely.
“As for now...yes, start your routine with him, let him adjust to his new schedule. I will keep in touch as things progress.”
It was a whirlwind blur. They were signing, and they were suddenly on their way. “Can I, um...can I say goodnight to him after I drop off what he’ll need while he’s with you?”
“Of course.” She blinks with a wet smile.
This was real.
Leo was hers. Leo was her son. No matter what happened with Owen’s proclamation, nothing could change the fact that he was her son.
They parted ways, Owen heading home to gather what Leo would need for the next two nights and Amelia hurried home, willing the traffic to stay relatively clear so she could get home to her son.
After what felt like hours, she pulled into the long driveway of what Derek called the Dream House. It was cheesy, but it was home when she needed it. Derek, Meredith, Maggie, herself. They lived there, paired with the eternal arguing and laughter alike of Zola, Bailey, Ellis and now, Leo. It was beautifully spacious—it had been built with both Cristina, Lexie and future children in mind, which led them with their solid seven bedrooms. Maggie had the room planned for Cristina, who resided in Switzerland. She had ended up in the spare room, leaving Lexie’s room as it was left. Every now and then, she’d show up and would reclaim her old room. But it was few and far between—she was happy with Mark, and their children.
Amelia jogged up the steps, walking into the house. She was greeted by the sound of happy screams. She narrowly avoided being plowed into by Zola, Sofia, Bailey, Ellis and Rosie, who were chasing each other. The five flew out the door, the screams fading as their game continued outdoors. She smiles when she sees Leo sitting in a highchair, little hands submerged in a bin of taste-safe sensory goop. Violette, Mark and Lexie’s youngest, sat in a chair beside him, giggling at her own mess.
Derek quickly rose from his chair when he saw her, eager to know what had happened. She ignored all of the eyes that were on her, making a beeline for her son. She didn’t care that his hands were covered in some sort of chia seed slime; she unbuckled him and lifted him up into her arms. She held him close, feeling him melt against her with a content sigh. She presses her lips to his head, inhaling the scent of baby shampoo as his mess of curls tickled her nose.
“Amy?” Derek asks.
She looks up when she hears the concern in his voice. She surveys the room. Derek is within reach now. Mark is watching from his seat beside where Derek was, and on the other side of the table, Lexie and Meredith were watching her. Even Levi and Violette had frozen in silence.
Amelia smiles softly which makes all the tension to melt away. “2-2-3.”
“What?” Meredith is who asks.
“He’s mine. I have him tonight and tomorrow, Owen has him Wednesday and Thursday, and I have him Friday through Sunday. Then we switch. That's our schedule, for now.” She presses another kiss to Leo’s head. “Oh, and, um, Owen will be here soon. He wants to drop off some of Leo’s necessities and say goodnight to him.”
“Okay,” Derek says, slight tension in his voice. He had always had a good relationship with Hunt, but then he had hurt his little sister. He had kept a friendly professional relationship with him at the hospital this past week, though this would be his first time seeing him outside the hospital walls since his sister had come knocking on his door in tears.
“Be civil, please.” It’s not just Derek she says that to, it’s Mark and Meredith, too. She doesn’t feel the need to tell Lexie, she knew she would be nice no matter what. “It’s what’s best for Leo.”
She smiles down at him, his chocolate eyes sparkling as he looked up at her with a smile. “Yeah,” she says with a smile in her voice. “Whatever’s best for you.”